Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers (29 page)

The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’ the air; strange screams of death …

I pictured the girl’s face and thought of my mother.

Oscar would not come back to my room. Once we had taken the composer and his daughter to their hotel, we went on to the Café Royal for a nightcap – brandy and champagne.

Sherard said little. Oscar said much – but none of it to any purpose. He said nothing of the horror of the night, nothing at all. He talked of Shakespeare (as he often does when in wine) and of love and death – and of the death of love in marriage. He quoted
Macbeth.
He spoke of Henry Irving’s Macbeth and Ellen Terry’s Lady Macbeth – and of his love for Ellen Terry and Lillie Langtry and Queen Victoria.

‘I would marry any one of them willingly – or all three at once – if I believed in marriage. But I don’t any more. Marriage ruins a man. It is as demoralising as cigarettes and far more expensive.’

He was, by turns, absurd and capricious. When it was gone one in the morning and the café was closing up about us, he said, ‘I’ll take a two-wheeler to Tite Street. How will you get home, Rex? Robert will walk to Gower Street, I know, but how will you travel? How does a vampire get about town these days – on foot or by wing?’

‘Since you ask,’ I said, ‘I shall be an owl tonight.’ I looked him directly in the eye as I spoke.

He returned my gaze and replied, ‘You do not surprise me. “It was the owl that shrieked – the fatal bellman which gives the stern’st good-night.” Goodnight, sweet Rex.’

What does he know?

56
From the notebooks of Robert Sherard

I
reached the Langham Hotel at 9 a.m. and found Oscar and Arthur Conan Doyle seated alone at a quiet table in the farthest reaches of the Palm Court. Doyle, in a pepper-and-salt tweed suit, looked out of place and out of sorts. His eyes were rheumy, the dark bags beneath them swollen and creased.

Oscar, by contrast, appeared remarkably well rested and full of the joys of spring. His cheeks were pasty and pallid as ever, but his eyes sparkled and his costume was a riot of contrasting colours: a lime-green frock-coat (with sea-green silk facings), a rose-pink waistcoat, a lemon-yellow shirt, an azure-blue necktie, a pearl tiepin and, in his buttonhole, a daffodil.

He smiled as he watched me appraising his attire. ‘Fashion is what one wears oneself,’ he began, then glanced teasingly at Conan Doyle before adding: ‘What is unfashionable is what other people wear.’

‘Fashion be damned,’ snapped Doyle. ‘At the Empire Music Hall last night a young woman was brutally murdered.’

‘Indeed,’ sighed Oscar. ‘And at the Savoy Hotel today, I understand they are introducing pink tablecloths to flatter the complexions of their female diners. What is becoming of the world?’

‘Dammit, Oscar,’ barked Conan Doyle, ‘do you have to make a joke of everything?’

‘Pink linen at the Savoy is no joke, Arthur.’

‘Must you laugh at everything you encounter?’

‘If I laugh at any mortal thing, my friend, ’tis that I may not weep. You know that. We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.’

I took my place at table and, pouring myself some coffee, I looked at Conan Doyle’s melancholy face. His eggs and bacon sat cold on his plate before him. His newspaper lay open on the table.

‘What happened after we left last night?’ I asked.

‘I take it you’ve not read the paper?’ he replied. ‘It seems that the body of Miss Louisa Lavallois was discovered late last night – by a lamplighter – in a dark alley off Leicester Square.’

‘Ah,’ said Oscar lightly, buttering a piece of toast. ‘You moved the body. Your conscience pricks.’

‘I did
not
move the body,’ hissed Doyle.

‘Albemarle moved the body, then – or rather Albemarle got his butler to move the body, with Lord Yarborough assisting. I see it all.’

Conan Doyle said nothing.

‘’Twas well done. ’Twas necessary.’

‘Was it?’ demanded Conan Doyle tetchily.

‘Yes, Arthur. The Prince of Wales is next in line to the throne of England. One day, probably quite soon, he will be king, ruling over a mighty empire that reaches across the globe. Protecting the royal reputation is in the national interest. To distance the prince from murder was the right thing to do – without question. To move the poor girl’s body was a patriotic duty.’ Oscar bit into
his piece of toast. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘no harm was done.’

‘Was it not?’

‘I think we can safely assume that His Royal Highness was not personally involved in the girl’s death.’

‘Can we? Clearly he knew her. Clearly he loved her.’

‘And all men kill the thing they love?’

‘No, of course not. But Miss Lavallois’s association with the prince may have had some bearing on her murder, don’t you agree?’

‘I do,’ said Oscar, pushing his plate to one side and reaching for his cigarette case. ‘That’s why we are going to Paris – almost at once.’

‘Paris?’ Dr Doyle shook his head despairingly. ‘If I am going anywhere, Oscar, I am going to Southsea.’

‘By way of Montmartre,
mon ami
. Robert and I are off to the city of light, and you are coming too, Arthur. Not this morning – we have an audience with the Prince of Wales at noon. Not tomorrow morning – we are attending the Duchess of Albemarle’s funeral. But tomorrow afternoon, Arthur, by the two o’clock train, we are going to Paris, to the Moulin Rouge. We are going for an evening of cabaret and detective work. We shall have solved this mystery before the police have got their boots on.’

‘The police already have their boots on, and their laces tied,’ said Conan Doyle, passing his newspaper across the table to Oscar. ‘Scotland Yard have one of their top men on the case.’

Oscar drew on his cigarette and perused the newspaper. ‘Inspector Walter Andrews,’ he sniffed, ‘not a name to conjure with.’ He raised a supercilious eyebrow.
‘And the officer’s claim to fame appears to be an involvement with the Jack the Ripper murders – so the bright spark has at least ten unsolved crimes to his credit.’ He dropped the newspaper disdainfully. ‘I don’t think we need be fearful of the competition, Arthur.’

‘This isn’t a game, Oscar. This is murder.’

‘Yes, murder most foul. And Jack the Ripper isn’t our murderer. As I recall, in the Ripper murders, throats were cut and stomachs eviscerated. Our man has a much lighter, defter touch – if our man be a man at all, of course.’

‘What are you suggesting, Oscar?’ I asked. ‘That the murderer isn’t a man but some strange creature of the night?’

Conan Doyle gave a hollow laugh and said mockingly: ‘Such as a vampire?’

‘No, not a vampire … but a
woman
, perhaps?’

Oscar returned Conan Doyle’s newspaper to him.

‘I observed the finger marks to one side of the dead girl’s face. A hand had been placed across her mouth – to hold her down, to silence her. The bruising was considerable, but the impressions left by the assailant’s fingertips suggested a small hand rather than a large one – a woman’s rather than a man’s.’

‘But the girl’s neck was broken with huge force.’

‘Perhaps then we are looking for two murderers – a woman and a man.’

‘Perhaps we should be letting the police look for the murderers, Oscar.’

‘We can’t withdraw from the case now, Arthur. We are too steeped in blood. We are committed. We must go on.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Conan Doyle, sitting upright and bracing himself. ‘This is now a matter for the proper authorities.’

‘In this instance, Arthur,’ said Oscar, sitting up also, ‘we are the proper authorities. We are best placed to solve this crime. We are ahead of the game. The police won’t know where to start. They’ll have a million suspects to eliminate – all of London, in fact. We have just thirteen.’

‘Thirteen?’

Oscar smiled. ‘Well, fifteen – if we include you and Professor Onofroff. Or sixteen, if we include Dvorak’s daughter.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’ asked Doyle, rapping the table with his newspaper in exasperation.

‘I mean that the murder of Louisa Lavallois was carried out by someone who was in the ante-room to the royal box last night.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Conan Doyle.

‘Necessarily,’ said Oscar.

‘No,’ protested Doyle, leaning forward. ‘The girl’s body was discovered in the water closet in the vestibule. The murderer could have followed the girl from the auditorium into the vestibule, done the deed while we were in the ante-room, standing in Professor Onofroff’s absurd mind-reading circle, and then slipped back into the auditorium unnoticed.’

‘Except they did not do so. That is not what happened.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know. The murderer was in the ante-room last night – with us. The murderer was in our midst.’

‘You can be sure of that?’

‘I can be and I am.’

‘And what makes you so certain?’

‘This.’

Oscar bent down and from the floor immediately beneath his chair picked up the small package that he had brought away from the theatre the evening before. He laid the parcel on the table before us and carefully unfolded the napkin wrapping to reveal its contents. There, lying between two cold lamb cutlets and three lobster claws, was a small oyster knife, its handle and blade covered in dried blood.

57
The Dark Penumbra
From the notebook of Inspector Hugh Boone of Scotland Yard, Tuesday, 18 March 1890

Important persons emerged from Empire Theatre of Varieties at 10.30 p.m. and departed in waiting brougham. Travelled in direction of Trafalgar Square, presumably towards Mall.

Suspect emerged at 10.45 p.m. approx, with regular companions, plus bearded gentleman (Russian?) and young female. Hailed four-wheeler. HB followed in two-wheeler. Trailed to Langham Hotel, brief stop, then returned to Piccadilly (Café Royal).

At 1 a.m. suspect returned to Chelsea – alone.